He seemed to like her spirit. She could not break his determination, he told her. He might be old, but this was his first love affair. Again and again she put him off. Always he followed her, spied on her, called her by phone. She could not escape him, but he couldn't persuade her to wed him.
Yesterday morning as usual he sent his love message over the telephone wires—and the girl hung up the receiver and she sneered in an explanation to the landlady. Later she was dressing to go out, when the back door of the rooming-house opened and the man from Kentucky bulged in the doorway.
"You've got your nerve coming into a lady's house without asking," said the girl.
"I've come to get you," said the man.
"Then you better go back again," and the girl turned away.
The man from Kentucky drew a revolver and shot her in the neck. She looked up at him from the floor, and he fired four more bullets into her body.
"If we can't be wed in life, we'll marry in death," the landlady heard him say, and he shot himself in the head.
Miss Helm died as the police were carrying her into the Chicago Union Hospital, and the man from Kentucky died later in the Alexian Brothers' Hospital. Before he went he told Detective William Rohan that he was a tobacco salesman and a professional card player.
"I drew for a queen to fill a bobtail flush," he said, with a queer smile, "but I didn't better my hand."
CHAUFFEUR'S FEET BURNED OFF